Jogging around the park? We'd rather jump through flames

Jogging around the park is no longer enough for extreme fitness fans. Specialist events for them are booming, and obstacle challenge firm Spartan Race is cashing in.

Spartan Race UK, owned by former Royal Marine Richard Lee, runs timed events involving scrambling under barbed wire or running over flames, often on Army training grounds.

About 25,000 ‘spartans’ in Britain took part last year.

Spartan Race also holds a 48-hour extreme ‘Death Race’, completed by only ten per cent of entrants.

Richard, 30, who with his Canadian girlfriend Selica Sevigny, 28 – now director of Spartan Race Quebec and Ontario – completed the Spartan Death Race in the US, believes that obstacle racing is set to become as popular as triathlon.

Eight events are planned in Britain this year at Ripon, Yorkshire; Edinburgh; Royston, Hertfordshire; Atherstone, Warwickshire; and Pippingford Park, in East Sussex.

Richard says: ‘Pippingford Park is horrible. The mud there is out of this world. There are endless stagnant pools and bogs, very steep hills and dense, thorny undergrowth – it’s perfect.’

Richard, a former Iron Man competitor, has plans for ‘world championships’ and is in talks with the owners of the Olympic and Wembley Stadiums.

‘Spartan sprints’ are now held in 60 cities across the US, Europe and Australia, almost double the number there were in 2011.

The US parent company was founded in 2005. Turnover for the British arm, based in Cambridge, was £2.5 million in 2012.